Latin American Studies Collections

The resilience of the PR’s people, its determination to move forward and onwards despite devastating hurricanes continues to serve as a source of unending inspiration for me as a librarian. Today, I present you with an album of several new Puerto Rican books that we have received in our library. Among them, there are several books that are worth mentioning separately. I will only name a few new titles and provide you with the links to the album of many more images of books from Puerto Rico. One of these titles is Hurracanada by Mayra Santos Febres. The other two books are Beatriz Llenín Figueroa’s– Puerto Islas : crónicas, crisis, amor, and El Grupo de Puerto Rico y Crisis Dominicana de 1965 by Walter R. Bonilla Carlo. Please click on the icons below to gain acces to the photos of the Puerto Rican books.

Hurracanada of Mayra Santos Febres

At the time of writing this post, Venezuela was in a full-blown political and economic crisis. The unprecedented inflation, two presidential hopefuls, and industry in the shambles, confusion, hunger and violence seemed to be the norms of the daily life for millions of innocent, decent Venezuelans. Despite the crisis, what surprised me was the ability of the Venezuelan governmental and non-governmental entities to continue to publish relatively exciting works in extraordinary times. Below, I am presenting you with the latest batch of remarkable books from remarkable books from Venezuela I am also posting some images of interesting books separately.

One of the interesting books is Cuaderno de Otra Parte by Santiago Acosta. The author’s website describes it as follows, “«Un poemario que, si bien parte de lo que se ha dado en llamar la diáspora venezolana, lleva el tema en otra dirección, con una voz que se burla de sí misma en su empeño por cumplir con los ritos del que se fue. En tal sentido, obviando la lectura que hace de esta una escritura del exilio, este texto se centra más bien en la distancia como elemento organizador del http://santiago-acosta.com/cdop/

The other equally interesting book is, El Chavismo El Chavismo Salvaje.

Lastly, Tiempos de Incertidumbre by Nelson Guzmán reflects upon the uncertain times in contemporary Venezuela.

Welcome back from the Spring break! I hope that you have had an excellent, rejuvenating break from studies. I wanted to present you with our album of select new Argentine titles.  Please click on the icon of the album below and enjoy our new Argentine books. These will be housed in the Doe Library.

The Spring break is upon us so I will be brief in this post. I am leaving you with an album of recently purchased Brazilian books at UC Berkeley Library! Enjoy your Spring break!

Please click on the icon below to access the full album. Thank you.

Spain being the former colonial power in Latin America remains closely tied with the continent in terms of its cultural production. Each year, several hundred books related to the Latin American and Caribbean topics are published in Spain. As the librarian who is charged with developing the collections to support both the student and faculty teaching and research on campus, I continue to build selectively in this particular area of publication. Below is the icon that upon clicking on it will allow you to see our recent acquisitions of books from Spain on Latin America!

There are several interesting books in this collection including the one on an exhibition of Lina Bo Bardi‘s modernist architecture. One can also look at the documentary on Lina Bo Bardi that I am posting below educational purposes.

Below are some of the select “artisanal” books that were published by the Frailejón Editores in Colombia. These books were produced in limited quantities and have artistic value. At the library, we collect these books on very limited basis. Most of these books below are the representations of the works by the famous Latin American authors.

The library was lucky to acquire only the select titles of a wonderful and well-known letterpress artist and printer Nacho Gómez Arriola from Mexico. These titles are unique and handmade at a letterpress called, “Taller Gráfica de Comala de Nacho Gómez Arriola.” One can see Nacho Gómez Arriola (on the left) sitting next to Juan Pascoe of Taller Martín Pescador. At the Bancroft Library, we do have a collection of Juan Pascoe’s works. Since each of these books are unique in their esthetics and provenance, the Doe Library will be offering these for safekeeping to our sister library-Bancroft Library. Below are some of the pictures of these books that one can enjoy by clicking here!